Palestine: Nasser hospital, southern Gaza’s lifeline, must be preserved
Medical facility faces severe access restrictions, putting people and care at risk
In southern Gaza, displacement orders and movement restrictions imposed by Israeli authorities on Nasser hospital are pushing this vital medical facility to the brink of being non-functional, warns Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Ordering hospitals to refuse new patients and making it harder for people to reach care has been a pattern aimed at bringing down the hospitals by the Israeli forces throughout the war. Nasser hospital is the last remaining lifeline for people in need and its full functionality must be restored immediately and preserved.
On June 3, our teams were told any movement to Nasser hospital would require authorization and this would have to be requested with at least 24 hours’ notice. This meant medical staff due on the day shift could not reach the hospital. The staff from the previous night had to continue working. They ended up staying on shift for 48 consecutive hours.
The outpatient department remained closed for the whole day. Ambulances able to carry people to the hospital did so at risk of being shot at because they lacked authorization. Nasser hospital’s location on the frontline hampers both staff and people’s ability to access this vital remaining hospital.
“Putting Nasser hospital out of service would equate to a death sentence for the most severe patients including wounded adults and children, critically ill patients and women in need of emergency obstetric care.”
Jose Mas, MSF head of emergency programs
This is happening while people are exhausted. Their lives have been shattered by 20 months of relentless war and a suffocating siege where even the distribution of minimal amounts of aid results in devastating massacres. In this context, any remaining medical facility is of critical importance and must be protected.
The attacks on healthcare are not only carried out through military action. They happen through limitations imposed on the import of medical supplies, forcing doctors to ration pain medication. They happen through displacement orders, leading to entire hospitals having to shut down on short notice. They happen through harassment and confusing orders issued by Israeli authorities, making it more and more difficult to provide lifesaving care.
“We have seen this pattern before,” says Jose Mas, MSF head of emergency programs. “It happened to facilities like Al Awda and Indonesian hospital, in northern Gaza, where they were first asked to not admit more people and a few days later were attacked and practically shut down. Putting Nasser hospital out of service would equate to a death sentence for the most severe patients including wounded adults and children, critically ill patients and women in need of emergency obstetric care.”
Nasser hospital is a large referral hospital with many specialist wards not found anywhere else in the south of Gaza, including operating rooms, an oxygen plant, ventilators, a blood bank and incubators. Reducing access to this hospital and blocking the referral of people who need specialist, emergency care, stops people from receiving treatment that could save their lives.
In the past few months, MSF medical teams in Nasser hospital have provided care to over 500 patients in the maternity ward, including women requiring surgical care, as well as to more than 400 newborn babies and pediatric patients. The hospital is full of people with burns and severe trauma.
Healthcare is under attack everywhere in Gaza. On the morning of June 4, Israeli forces struck the MSF-supported Al Aqsa hospital three times, the main facility in Deir Al Balah, central Gaza. Although no casualties were reported, it is a stark reminder of how people, medical staff and health facilities are constantly at great risk in Gaza.
Our teams have received people critically injured while trying to get food, after shootings around the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation food distribution centres. This is in addition to the people who have been wounded in the ongoing bombardment of the Gaza Strip. Hospitals are overflowing with patients.
It’s essential that Israeli authorities protect Nasser hospital and guarantee full and unimpeded access to patients and medical staff alike, to avoid more deaths.
